


limeleaf

by min_mintobe



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Friends With Benefits, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:41:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27724972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/min_mintobe/pseuds/min_mintobe
Summary: "How many people have you had sex with," Sakusa asks later that morning, with absolutely no preamble. Atsumu chokes on his breakfast and turns away to swallow heavily before answering.Sakusa waits."Why?" Atsumu finally says, giving Sakusa his most charming smile. "You looking to be the next in line?"Bad sex, good food, and the benefits of being friends.(Or: a teammates to lovers fic spanning five years, three kisses, and many detours.)
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 65
Kudos: 272





	limeleaf

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [parallax error: angle of inclination](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25748848) (Atsumu POV) and [parallax error: line of sight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26213260) (Sakusa POV)
> 
> Beta’d by the incomparable Quip ♥

On the first day of the rest of his life, Atsumu wakes up alone. 

He sits up in the dark, thinking of Sakusa. 

_Sex_ , Sakusa'd said yesterday, seconds before Bokuto had strolled up to them. 

_Sex_ , echoing through Atsumu's bones as the rest of the team comes in, as practice starts. 

_Sex_ , bouncing around his head all day long, all night long. 

Restless with half-remembered dreams and the all-too-clear memory of Sakusa saying _sex,_ Atsumu jerks off in the shower. Then he jogs to practice, hoping Sakusa will be there early too. 

_Sex, sex, sex._

* * *

"How many people have you had sex with," Sakusa asks later that morning, with absolutely no preamble. Atsumu chokes on his breakfast and turns away to swallow heavily before answering. 

Sakusa waits.

"Why?" Atsumu finally says, giving Sakusa his most charming smile. "You looking to be the next in line?" 

Sakusa doesn't deny this. He blinks, shrugs. It sets Atsumu's heart on fire. 

"How many people have _you_ had sex with?" Atsumu asks back, thrilled. 

"None," Sakusa answers, unashamed. Atsumu _glows,_ beaming up at him with unbridled anticipation. 

"Is that so?" Atsumu murmurs, more and more delighted by the second. 

Sakusa clicks his tongue. Then he looks right at Atsumu, eyes suddenly awake. 

"Why?" Sakusa asks, mouth curling sweetly. "How badly do you want to be first in line?" 

_Fuck,_ Atsumu thinks. 

_Fuck_. He can't answer. 

"You really want to be the first person to disappoint me in bed," Sakusa asks, still smiling. 

Atsumu splutters indignantly at the thought—at the _thought_ — 

"You haven't answered my question," Sakusa prompts. 

"I don't kiss and tell," Atsumu tells him, licking quietly at the inside of his own cheek. His ego recovers quickly, and he grins cheekily up at Sakusa. _Wouldn't you like to know._ Names and faces flash through his head. None half as gorgeous as the face in front of him right now; none half as sweet as _Sakusa Kiyoomi_. All probably better in bed, though. Atsumu prefers his lovers experienced. Less work, more pleasure. Being attracted to someone as painfully inexperienced as Sakusa isn't something he's really wanted to deal with before. Even so. Atsumu thinks he can adapt. Sakusa's worth it. 

"You don't need to know who and how many," Atsumu continues, over Sakusa's silent scowl, "—enough to know how to give someone a good time." 

Sakusa doesn't look convinced. 

"Enough to give _you_ a good time," Atsumu tells him, letting his voice drop low, letting himself lean closer. 

"I'm not doing this to have a good time," Sakusa tells him, not backing away. And—well. That's certainly new. 

The moment breaks. Atsumu blinks at him, seduction forgotten. 

* * *

"Teach me how to have sex," Sakusa says, like he hasn't already upended Atsumu's world over the last twenty-four hours. A kiss yesterday, sex today— 

"Why?" Atsumu asks, helplessly curious. "Who're you looking to blow? 

Sakusa glowers.

"Ushiwaka?" Atsumu guesses, because probably everyone in a three-year radius of their age has heard of Sakusa's infatuation with Japan's greatest southpaw. 

Sakusa doesn't answer. He _fidgets_ , long fingers twisting together, and Atsumu is entranced. 

"Your ex-captain? The DESEO Hornets setter?" Atsumu guesses again. He's heard things from Osamu who's heard things from Suna who's heard things from Komori, who's probably heard more things from Sakusa than he's ever wanted to hear in half a lifetime as Sakusa's teammate. Atsumu's not sure if he pities Komori or is intensely jealous of him. What wouldn't he give to know what Sakusa looks like, eyes coming alight, when he falls in love. 

Sakusa still doesn't answer. He shakes his head slowly, not looking at Atsumu. 

"Why come to me? Scared you'll make a mess of yourself? Scared you won't be able to take it—" 

"If you don't want to do it, Miya—"

_If you don't want to do me, Miya,_ Atsumu hears, and oh, he _wants_. 

"Oh, I'll do ya', baby," Atsumu grins, tongue curling out his mouth in hungry anticipation. He wants. 

Sakusa feels something like fear coil through him at the sound of _baby_ and the way Atsumu's tongue darts over his lips. 

"I'm not asking for a relationship," Sakusa feels the need to clarify. "Don't touch me. Don't hold my hand. And don't ever try to kiss me again." 

"Baby. You asked me to kiss you." 

Sakusa ignores this. 

"How'm I gonna teach you anything if I can't touch—" 

"I'll touch you. You don't touch me." 

Sakusa is so, _so_ touchy it makes Atsumu want to touch him all over all the more. 

"Who'd wanna be in a relationship with you? Who'd like you? Ya' prickly bastard." 

"You don't need to like me to have sex with me." 

Well. Sakusa's not wrong. 

"Teach me how to have sex," Sakusa says, again. 

Atsumu's already going to say _yes_ , but he can't help but try to wheedle just a bit more out of him. 

"What'll you teach me in return? This body ain't free," he tells Sakusa, gesturing at—well, all of himself. 

Sakusa doesn't look half as impressed as he ought to. Atsumu flexes as subtly as he can. 

"I'll teach you how to cook," Sakusa says, ignoring this. 

Something lights up in Atsumu's chest at the offer. 

"Yes," he says, before his brain catches up to everything this implies—Sakusa teaching him how to cook. Sakusa _knowing_ how to cook. Sakusa _cooking_ , Sakusa _eating_ —what does Sakusa even like to eat? Atsumu doesn't think he's ever seen Sakusa consume anything with joy. Mostly Sakusa sticks to protein shakes and the odd piece of fruit. Bananas, apples, and pears, mostly. Atsumu’s watched him peeling the sticker off and washing fruit carefully with soap in the locker room sink enough times for it to stop being interesting. Even when he washes the bananas, peel on. When they have packed bento or buffet dinners at away games, Sakusa pokes the food on his plate around with mild judgement and consumes only enough to hit his macros. 

Sakusa eats like he will consume exactly enough to keep him alive and volleyball-ready, and no more. Atsumu can't imagine him enjoying food. 

"Come over this weekend, then," Sakusa says. "What do you want to make?" 

"Onigiri," is Atsumu's immediate answer. 

It's the one thing Atsumu can do well. If he's going to have Sakusa sneering at him in some cramped hot kitchen, he can at least start with something he's passably confident he can do. 

Sakusa nods. "I was thinking about seafood. We can do fish in the onigiri and clam miso soup." 

It sounds good to Atsumu too. 

He doesn't—he doesn't actually need Sakusa to teach him how to cook. He's a fairly good cook himself, and he's improved by the day since he moved to Osaka on his own. Back home in the Miya household, Osamu had hogged most of the cooking duties, relegating Atsumu to washing dishes. Atsumu hadn't complained. Cooking for a family of seven had been a hellish task, complicated by the picky appetites of certain elder Miyas and the constant interruption of certain smaller Miyas. Atsumu had run interference while Osamu cooked, scooping up any younger siblings that wandered into the kitchen. 

Cooking on his own, for himself, is both better and worse than cooking for his family. It's peaceful and quiet and Atsumu can cook whatever he wants. But maybe it’s a little too peaceful and quiet, and Atsumu misses having to cook whatever someone else wants while trying to keep grubby little hands away from hot surfaces. On his own, Atsumu settles into an easy kind of meal prep situation, cooking up a big batch of curry or stew on the weekend and freezing it in portions. All he has to do on weekdays is toss some rice in the rice cooker and heat a handful of frozen vegetables in the microwave. 

_Something from the ocean, and something from the hills_ , his mother used to say, her version of a balanced diet. Most days Atsumu doesn't manage it, too tired to deal with fresh seafood and the long prep time. 

But now Sakusa is inviting him over for food and sex as if it's nothing at all. 

"What do you want in it?" Sakusa asks, the day before Atsumu's supposed to come over. 

"Salmon. Salted salmon," Atsumu tells him, because it's the one thing he can't make on his own. Other fillings—kombu, umeboshi, bonito flakes, tuna mayo—he can buy in little tubs and cans. All he needs to cook is rice. But salmon, salted and baked and flaked into hot little pieces of heaven fresh out of the oven—an oven that Atsumu doesn't own—Atsumu's already hungry thinking of how good it will taste. 

Sakusa nods, hums in acknowledgement. 

"Tomorrow, then," he says.

* * *

"Shower first," Sakusa says, the moment Atsumu steps into his house the next day. "Then sex. Then food." 

"You're extremely unromantic," Atsumu complains.

Sakusa stares at him for a long moment. Atsumu perseveres in looking forlorn. And then Sakusa opens his mouth again. 

"Whisper to me what it is you want," Sakusa says, sardonically. "What will your pleasure be?"

"Are you quotin' Aladdin at me, Omi-omi!" Atsumu chirps, delighted at this fascinating insight into what one Sakusa Kiyoomi considers _romantic_.

"Princess," Atsumu starts, but Sakusa's already walking away, jerking his head in the direction of the shower. 

Atsumu goes, humming under his breath. _A whole new world_. 

* * *

He returns squeaky clean and suitably disrobed to discover that they will not be using the bed.

Instead, Sakusa drapes a towel over the edge of his dining table and points Atsumu to it.

_Fine_ , Atsumu thinks, _if you want to do it standing up so you get to feel taller_. He's not at all bitter that Sakusa is taller than he is. Not bitter at all. 

He leans back against the table, freshly showered skin tingling in the cool spring air. Sakusa returns with two condoms, a bottle of lotion, and no clothes on. 

Atsumu doesn't waste any time, rolls his condom on and slicks his hand up with lotion, starts jerking himself off. He knows Sakusa's watching. 

Sakusa takes his time, scowling ferociously at the lotion, at the condom, at his own dick—Atsumu laughs, inside his head, because he knows if he laughs aloud Sakusa will throw him out and never ever speak to him again. 

"Hey," he calls, grinning at Sakusa. "C'mere. Lemme touch you." 

Sakusa scowls even harder, shakes his head _no_. He does come over though, close enough for Atsumu to touch, awkward and stiff in more ways than one. 

The knowledge that Sakusa is turned on by this makes Atsumu giddy with joy. 

"Touch yourself, then," Atsumu suggests, magnanimous. He can wait his turn if Sakusa's feeling shy. 

Sakusa shakes his head _no_ again. 

"I don't—I don't touch myself." 

The admission knocks all the blood from Atsumu's brain straight into his dick. 

"You—what?" he gapes at Sakusa, impossibly hard all at once. 

Sakusa doesn't explain himself. He's quiet, just stands there until Atsumu gets over the initial shock and starts stroking himself off again, blood flowing rapidly back to his brain as he considers all the implications—all the potentialities—of Sakusa not touching himself. 

"How come you don't touch yourself?" Atsumu asks.

"It's disgusting." 

"How come you're fine with touching me then?" 

"You're already disgusting."

"Omi," Atsumu begins, hurt. Sakusa clicks his tongue at him.

"That's not—you know what I mean," he mutters, gesturing vaguely. 

Atsumu doesn't have it in him to admit that he does not, in fact, know what Sakusa means. 

* * *

Sakusa doesn't touch himself. 

He can't bring himself to, and he doesn't really feel the need to.

Sakusa remembers the first time he'd had a wet dream and woken up to a wet patch on his pants. The chafing of cloth against him had sent shivers of pleasure up his spine even as he grimaced at the sticky wetness. Disgusting. Slimy and obscene. He'd washed off, touching himself just enough to make sure he'd been clean, and flopped back into bed trying to remember the dream. 

Golden skin, a brilliant smile. A strange voice, careless and bright, laughing. The curl of heat in his gut at the sight of that smile, at the sight of rough fingers reaching out towards him. 

It's a dream that comes back again and again over the years, leaving him gasping and sticky when he wakes. The same voice, sometimes laughing, sometimes mocking, sometimes mad. The same smile, always, eventually. He can't put eyes or the rest of a face to the dream. The same hand, reaching out to him. Fearing and wanting with all his heart. _Don't touch me. Touch me._ Waking up to the disgusting aftermath. It makes Sakusa sick to think of someone else touching him; it makes him sick to think about touching himself. So he doesn't.

He doesn't need to explain all this to Atsumu, Sakusa thinks. Atsumu, who's leaning against his dining table with his cock out, one lazy hand stroking himself off. He smiles at Sakusa, sly, and reaches out towards him. The sudden deja vu knocks Sakusa sideways, but then Atsumu touches him, fingers brushing up his cock. Immediately it's too much, and Sakusa slaps his hand away with a hiss. 

"Don't touch me—" he gasps out, hot with anger. 

"Okay, okay—" Atsumu backs off, palm raised in surrender. 

"Don't touch me," Sakusa snaps again. "Don't touch any part of me at all." 

"Fine, _fine_ , won't touch you if yer gonna be so uptight 'bout it. How 'bout you touch me, then," he offers, eyes hooded. Atsumu keeps his hand moving up and down, and Sakusa can't look away. 

"Touch me like this," Atsumu says, voice low. "Gimme your hand." 

Sakusa slaps away Atsumu's attempt to grab him by the wrist, clicking his tongue in annoyance. But he steps closer, close enough to feel the heat rolling off Atsumu, close enough to touch. It helps that he's taller than Atsumu, that he can look down at him. Atsumu doesn't reach out for him again. He stops touching himself, lets his hands drop back to brace himself against the table. 

Sakusa stares at Atsumu's cock, heavy and swollen in the air between them. It's fine, he tells himself. He'd watched Atsumu shower and roll on a condom himself. It's clean. He reaches out, determined, touches his fingers to the side of Atsumu's cock. It's _hot._ It burns against Sakusa's fingers, against his palm, as he closes his hand around it. 

Atsumu throws his head back and groans, his whole body shaking. Then he jerks his head forward again, face flushed. 

"Okay," he tells Sakusa, "hold it—tighter, move your hand—" 

Sakusa obeys, mesmerised. He tightens his grip a little, slides his hand up and down experimentally. The hot friction is intoxicating. Atsumu scrabbles around, finds the lotion and squirts it carelessly over where Sakusa's hand is wrapped around his cock. 

"Use that," Atsumu tells him. 

It's slick, with the lotion. Sakusa keeps moving his hand up and down, marveling at how hot and hard and heavy Atsumu is. He hadn't expected to be so—drawn in, entranced by something he'd only ever thought of with mild disgust. He keeps touching Atsumu, riveted by the way his cock jumps in Sakusa's hand when he touches, squeezes. 

* * *

Sakusa is. Terrible. At this. 

Atsumu absolutely, fervently believes that Sakusa has never ever touched himself because the way he's touching Atsumu right now is driving him _mad._

Atsumu had groaned, turned on beyond belief, when Sakusa first reached out and touched him, wrapped those long cool fingers around Atsumu's cock. 

Now, though. It's slick, with the lotion, but Sakusa isn't doing very much with it. He slides his hand up and down, slowly. Squeezes Atsumu like it's fun. It makes Atsumu's cock jerk in surprise, but it isn't—it isn't _good_ ; Sakusa has no sense of rhythm or pressure _at all_. He's just—touching, like Atsumu's a new brand of volleyball and Sakusa wants to know how it's different from the usual. He's driving Atsumu crazy. 

At one point Sakusa realises that there's lotion all over the backs of his fingers—Atsumu's fault, he'll admit. He'd been too excited and squirted it all over Sakusa's hand. But then Sakusa starts wiping his fingers off against Atsumu's cock, dragging the backs of his fingers against the side of Atsumu's cock one by one. He's frowning, deliberate, annoyed as he cleans his fingers off meticulously. It's not sexy at all, but Atsumu is so hard he has to close his eyes and breathe in slowly through his nose. 

_What are you_ — _what are you doing_? He wants to yell, because Sakusa's done cleaning his fingers off and has started to rub the streaks of lotion in with a maddening lack of sexiness. He's just rubbing his fingers all over the shaft of Atsumu's cock, chasing down the last little bits of lotion with single minded ferocity. _This isn't what it means to polish the knob, you damn fool_ , Atsumu thinks, faint with arousal and annoyance. He wants to—he wants to grab Sakusa's hand, show him how to move it, quick and tight and good. 

But there's something compelling about the way Sakusa touches him, innocent and curious. Like he's learning something new for the first time. Like he's touching a cock for the first time, even though he has a perfectly fine, hard one of his own. Atsumu looks up at him. Breathes in around the tight annoyance in his chest and looks at Sakusa. His eyes are wide, face as flushed and as excited as Atsumu has ever seen. He's not smiling, but he's—interested, fascinated by Atsumu, can't take his eyes off Atsumu's cock. And that's a huge ego boost, isn't it, to be looked at like he's more interesting than one of Nicolas Romero's serves. Atsumu thinks he can endure Sakusa's amateurish fumbling for a while yet, if he keeps looking at Atsumu that way. 

He stays quiet, lets Sakusa touch to his heart's content. Drinks in the sight of Sakusa's wide, dark eyes, his sweet, flushed face. He really is very pretty, under the mask—his eyes are huge, when they're not squeezed into creases by his usual scowl. He's got a small mouth, lips curling downward in a little pout. A small jaw, too, slender cheeks, sharp chin. Atsumu thinks about touching that face, gently holding Sakusa's face and working his jaw open, pushing his cock into that sweet little mouth, looking into those big dark eyes while Sakusa kneels between his legs—and he's very very hard suddenly, cock jumping against Sakusa's hand. Sakusa's hand jerks at the feeling, and he shoots a quick questioning look at Atsumu—his eyes, _god_ , Atsumu thinks. _No grown man should be allowed to have eyes that sweet_. Sakusa's like a tall, overgrown Bambi, looming over him with a lot of muscles and very soft eyes. 

"Ah—s'good," he tells Sakusa, even though he really has no idea what Sakusa's been doing to his dick for the past few minutes, too caught up in his own fantasies. 

"Keep going," he encourages, because Sakusa's hand isn't moving anymore. Sakusa looks at him again, like _are you sure_ , and Atsumu is absolutely ruined by the guileless hesitation in his eyes. 

"Yeah," Atsumu says, suddenly flustered. "Keep going, s'good." 

Sakusa nods, blinks, shy—then his eyes slide away, and he goes back to looking down at Atsumu and touching him. Atsumu's so fucked, he's really just—he doesn't know how he's going to come like this, with Sakusa's hand meandering maddeningly up and down, gentle and soft. _Where is the Sakusa that sneers and snaps his wrist to send a ball twisting down hard enough to echo through the gym?_ Atsumu thinks, despairing. _Could really use some of that wrist strength right now._

Atsumu knows Sakusa gets soft like this though, when he sees new things, interesting things. Volleyball things, usually; Atsumu's thing, as of right now. His eyes go big and focused, drinking in everything, figuring out how it works, what makes it good. How to make it his own. It'd once taken Sakusa a good three hours to mimic one of Bokuto's ultra cross beam shots, his eyes going wide and wondering when he'd succeeded. Atsumu hopes he doesn't die before Sakusa figures his thing out. 

Sakusa kind of fumbles his way into a rhythm, eventually, squeezing his fist around Atsumu's cock gently. It's not enough, not when he isn't even stroking Atsumu properly from base to tip. His hand is just closing softly around the top half of Atsumu's cock, fingers slipping off the top and coming back down, rubbing up and down, up and down. 

"D'you wanna—" Atsumu chokes out, because he really is going to die soon, "—wanna put yours—" 

He gestures to Sakusa's hard, leaking cock. As flattering as it is that Sakusa seems to be getting off on this, Atsumu had come here today to touch Sakusa. He doesn't know how it's ended up the other way round, with him panting and shaking while Sakusa touches him. _Sakusa's not even good at this_ , Atsumu thinks. _How is he still so hot_.

Sakusa pauses in his hellish ministrations, thinks about it, and nods; then he shuffles closer, closer. Presses himself right up against Atsumu, mere inches between them. He's tall, and Atsumu has to lean back, stomach shaking, as Sakusa leans even closer. Then he pushes his cock softly up against Atsumu's and wraps his big hand around them both. 

Atsumu is absolutely expiring—he's tense all over, _don't touch any part of me at all_ ringing in his head, and his knuckles are clenched round the table's edge with the effort of leaning away from Sakusa just enough to keep a thin layer of air between them. It's hot, so hot suddenly, with Sakusa so close to him, leaning over him, tall and strong, hand squeezing over both their cockheads so gently it's barely enough to feel like something. 

He can smell Sakusa, body wash and crazy sweet pheromones that make his mouth water. He's looking down at Sakusa's collarbones, straining with the effort of not dropping his head down onto Sakusa's shoulder, panting at the hot, hard slide of Sakusa's cock against his, the aching lightness of Sakusa's hand wrapped around them both. 

* * *

Sakusa is. Very very turned on, by this. 

He's already achingly hard from looking at Atsumu, watching the way his whole body flushes all over, the way his cock goes hard and heavy and red. Atsumu is gorgeous, impossibly good-looking with his clothes off, muscles bulging with the strain of holding himself away from Sakusa. Sakusa wants to touch him so badly, wants to close those few inches between them, wants to pull Atsumu's head down onto his shoulder, hold him so he doesn't have to shake from holding himself up. 

But he can't speak, can't really move, either. His head is cloudy with the smell of his own shampoo in Atsumu's hair, the smell of Atsumu himself, hot and musky when he's so close, so close to Sakusa. He wants to make Atsumu feel good, wants to make him come. 

He'd felt very awkward and naive, earlier, touching Atsumu carefully, unsure of how to make it good. But Atsumu had seemed to like it, told him to keep going. He certainly seems to like what's happening now, panting hotly against Sakusa's collarbones like he's ready to blow. 

It's too much sensation for Sakusa, already—he knows he's not going to come, cock burning uncomfortably under him as it slides up against Atsumu's. He's trying to keep his hand light, not liking the pressure, the burn of it as he touches himself while touching Atsumu. Atsumu groans, a hot wet sound; he looks so good, flushed all over and shaking underneath Sakusa, his face thrown downwards, hidden. Sakusa can only see the flush burning up his neck all the way to his ears. Atsumu groans again, and his hips push forward, just a bit, not enough to push himself against Sakusa but obvious enough that Sakusa thinks maybe Atsumu wants more. 

So he tightens his grip on their cocks, grits his teeth against the painful burning sensation, pumps his hand faster, tighter around them both. Atsumu throws his head back, eyes closed, face flushed, nodding and biting his lips, and he looks so good Sakusa feels his heart lurch in his chest. Sakusa gives in to that desperate, wanting expression, pumps his hand fast and tight, twists his wrist so he can stroke more, faster—then he feels Atsumu jerk up, underneath him; Atsumu's mouth opens into the most obscene moan as he falls back onto his elbows on the table, shaking and coming. Sakusa takes a step back as he goes, separating himself cleanly from Atsumu's body, glad to get away. 

But somehow his hand is still on Atsumu's cock as he comes, and Sakusa's mind sears at the feeling of it jerking and twitching in his hand, hot come spilling out into the condom in thick white spurts. Atsumu's moaning quietly around his knuckles, body twisted on the table, one foot dangling off the ground. It's the hottest thing Sakusa has ever seen. He looks and looks, just—in absolute disbelief at how hot everything is, and thinks—if this is what sex is, he might want to have sex with Miya Atsumu again and again and again. 

Sakusa's still painfully hard, skin burning all over. He peels the condom off and steps away, breathing hard, willing his own erection down. Suddenly everything itches and his heart is beating much too fast and he needs to get away. 

"Wait—Omi—it's not sex if you don't come," Atsumu wheezes, dragging himself upright. "Come back here." 

Then Atsumu collapses laughing at his own (terribly unfunny) pun, and Sakusa abandons him for the shower. 

* * *

"Did you come?" Atsumu asks, when Sakusa emerges from the bathroom showered and dressed. "Were you thinking of me?"

"No." Sakusa answers, "and no." 

"Guess yer still a virgin, then," Atsumu leers. "Guess we'll have to do something about it next week, then." 

He disappears into the bathroom with a wink before Sakusa can answer. 

It's almost a relief, how infuriating Atsumu can be. 

* * *

Sakusa doesn't want to think about what just happened.

( _Sex_ , his brain unhelpfully supplies. _We had sex_. Followed immediately by Atsumu's ridiculous _it's not sex if you don't come_ —)

"Omi-kun," Atsumu whines, "how could you start cooking without me?" 

He's standing damply (and thankfully clothed) at the edge of Sakusa's kitchen, towelling his hair dry. 

_He showered again_ , Sakusa notes. Something inside him eases at the sight, at the easy way Atsumu changes tack. It's as if the past hour hadn't happened at all. 

"Only the rice and fish," Sakusa tells him. 

"That's literally everything that's going into the onigiri. You're a terrible teacher." 

"You don't know how to cook rice?" Sakusa snipes, ignoring the part about the fish. He'd been so fidgety the fish had been seasoned and put into the oven before he even realised what he was doing.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day," Atsumu retorts, ignoring the part about the rice. "Teach a man how to cook a fish and—"

"This plate is yours," Sakusa says, giving Atsumu an enormous round platter before he can complain some more. "And this is mine." 

* * *

Atsumu's good at making onigiri. He remembers the way Osamu taught him. He's not as good as Osamu, but good enough to think he could definitely give Sakusa a run for his money. He doesn't need Sakusa to teach him this, not really. He just wants to watch Sakusa get his hands dirty. But first he's determined to prove his onigiri-shaping superiority. 

Atsumu wets his hands and salts them, sprinkling salt into his palms and spreading it all over his hands. Then he reaches for the first handful of rice. He spreads the rice over his left palm and presses a little well into the middle of the rice with his thumb. Scoops a spoonful of salmon flakes into the dent and curls his hand carefully. Then he gently brings both hands together over the loose edges of rice. _Perfect_ , he thinks, pressing the rice ball into a compact pyramid between his hands. He's still got a backup job at Onigiri Miya if volleyball doesn't work out. There's something to be said for the transferable skill of having strong, sensitive fingers. 

Then he looks over, and Sakusa is doing something hopelessly complicated with a bowl, two spoons, and an enormous piece of cling wrap. Atsumu watches as Sakusa tries to line the bowl with the uncooperative cling wrap. 

"Omi-kun," Atsumu says, squishing the rice ball in his hand a little too tightly. Sakusa is fighting off the static cling of the plastic wrap while trying to ladle a spoonful of rice into it. 

"Omi-kun, what are you doing," he continues, as they both watch the lump of rice cling stubbornly to the spoon, refusing to drop into the cradle of cling wrap Sakusa'd prepared in the bowl. Atsumu surreptitiously re-shapes the squashed onigiri in his hand and puts it down. No need for Sakusa to make some scathing comment about him getting carried away right now. 

"I'm not going to touch the rice, Miya," Sakusa says, scowling. "It feels disgusting." 

He finally scrapes the rice into the bowl with another spoon, spreads it out against the bottom of the bowl, and sprinkles salt over it. 

"The salt is on the wrong side," Atsumu immediately tells him, because he feels deeply offended on Osamu's behalf. 

"The salt goes on your HAND, it goes on the OUTSIDE of the onigiri as you shape it, Omi-kun—you're putting salt on the INSIDE, against the filling, that's the wrong side—" and Sakusa is, he's pushing a dent into the surface of the salted rice with his spoon, spooning a scoop of kombu into it. Then he carefully twists the edges of the plastic wrap up and brings them together, forming a little plastic-wrapped rice ball. Sakusa picks it up and starts shaping it with his hands. It's a fairly ingenious way of making rice balls without having to get your hands dirty, Atsumu has to admit. But the salt is still on the wrong side of the rice. Sakusa's making a rice ball with plain outsides, unsalted rice pressed against the cling wrap as Sakusa shapes it into a rough pyramid wrapped in plastic. A rice ball with salted insides, salt against the filling on the inside. 

There's some kind of metaphor to be made here, Atsumu thinks, about a man who makes his onigiri with cling wrap and salt on the inside. The slight saltiness of the first bite into a properly-salted onigiri—an onigiri salted on the _outside_ —it's _heaven_ , and Sakusa is a demon if he can live with biting into plain rice and too-salty filling. Sakusa hasn't even bothered to refute him. He presses his hands carefully around his cling-wrapped onigiri one last time for good measure, and then carefully starts to unpeel it. 

"Your onigiri has wrinkles in it," Atsumu tells Sakusa, because it's true. The cling wrap leaves creases on the top of Sakusa's rice ball as he unwraps it slowly and tips it onto his plate. 

"Eat shit, Miya," Sakusa returns, making eye contact with Atsumu as he slaps a piece of kombu over the wrinkles. He does this with chopsticks and an uncannily accurate flick of the wrist. Atsumu remembers he still has to put a piece of salmon on top of his own onigiri, to make sure they don't mix the flavours up. He goes to do it, poking it into the top of his onigiri with a salty finger. Then he carefully wraps a piece of seaweed around the onigiri and puts it gently down on the plate. Sakusa starts ladling a second spoonful of rice into his cling-wrap-in-bowl contraption, and Atsumu feels something die inside him. He wets and salts his hands again, not about to be outdone. 

"Bet I can make more onigiri than you can," Atsumu tells him, because if Sakusa persists in salting onigiri on the inside, the least he can do is make sure he doesn't have to eat any of the ones Sakusa makes. There is no way Sakusa will ever match his speed while wrestling that huge piece of cling wrap and keeping his hands clean. 

Sakusa hums, shrugs, and sprinkles salt over what will become the inside— _the inside!!_ —of his next rice ball. Atsumu goes quiet after that, shaping onigiri with vicious ferocity, mind in absolute turmoil over the sheer chaotic energy Sakusa radiates. 

_Why even make onigiri if you're not going to do it right_ , Atsumu thinks. 

_Because you asked him to_ , a tiny voice in his heart says. 

Atsumu squashes the voice down and concentrates on the onigiri. Wet hands—salt hands—shape onigiri—wrap in seaweed—put on plate. Sakusa fumbles his way through making his next plastic-wrapped onigiri with a look of mild disgust on his face. Sakusa must never meet Osamu, Atsumu decides there and then. Osamu would _murder_ him. 

Atsumu makes thirteen rice balls to Sakusa's seven. He'd switched to kombu after making ten salmon onigiri, putting them in neat rows of five on the plate. They're almost all the same size and shape, wrapped in neat seaweed jackets. Atsumu takes a minute to gloat in victory. Then he looks over at Sakusa's plate—at the seven pyramids of different sizes lying haphazardly wherever they happened to fall when Sakusa had shaken them off the cling wrap. 

They're—they're naked. Sakusa hadn't even bothered to wrap them up in seaweed. Atsumu feels like he's won a battle but somehow faces losing a war. 

Sakusa's already cleaning up, twisting the cling wrap up and throwing it away. His hands are really still perfectly clean. 

"Wrap those," he tells Atsumu, jabbing his finger at the lumpy naked onigiri on his plate, then at the untouched seaweed strips. 

Atsumu starts to protest— _why should he_ —but Sakusa silences him with a clatter and a glare as he bangs a clean pot down on the stove. 

"I'm making the soup. You want to eat nothing but rice balls for dinner?" 

No, Atsumu doesn't. He picks up one of Sakusa's rice balls and starts wrapping it in seaweed. 

* * *

Dinner is five rice balls each, the rest going into the fridge for the next day. Atsumu wraps them in cling wrap and then in a kitchen towel before putting them in the fridge, so they won't harden from getting too cold. 

Sakusa whips up a quick clam miso soup, dropping a piece of kombu into the pot to boil with the clams and then fishing it out once the clams are done. He motions Atsumu over and tells him to stir the miso paste into the soup while he checks on the vegetables in the oven. 

They're both starving by the time the soup and vegetables are ready, and move quickly from kitchen to dining table. The same dining table they just had sex against earlier, Atsumu remembers, dizzy all over again at the memory. Sakusa had wiped the table down and disinfected it thoroughly after, but still. _Still_. 

Sakusa doesn't seem bothered by the memory—if he's even thinking about it at all. He settles into his seat opposite Atsumu, claps his hands together with a soft _itadakimasu_ , and picks up a rice ball. 

Atsumu is immediately intrigued. 

"Hey. Hey, you can't touch rice but you can touch...seaweed?" 

Sakusa frowns at him, chewing on a bite of rice and seaweed. 

"It's...different," Sakusa says eventually. He carefully takes another bite out of his rice ball. He's eating around the filling, Atsumu realizes. Sakusa's biting around the kombu like it's toxic, and Atsumu is so entranced by the way this strange creature eats something as ordinary as onigiri that he hasn't even started on his own food. 

Then Sakusa seems to reach some inner agreement that he's eaten enough of the rice around the kombu to switch tracks, and starts in on the kelp pieces, nibbling them out of the hollow in his rice ball with practiced grace. 

"That's disgusting, Omi-kun, that's not how yer supposed to eat it," Atsumu says, shocked at the way Sakusa seems to consider a kombu onigiri as—as rice _and_ kombu rather than rice _with_ kombu. 

Sakusa is chewing each piece of kelp slowly. He finishes the lot and moves back to eating the rest of the now-plain rice ball. 

"What's the point? What's the point of eatin' a rice ball with filling if yer gonna eat all the filling and then all the rice?" 

Atsumu's getting gastric from watching the way Sakusa eats. Sakusa's lucky he's not Osamu. 

Sakusa just frowns at him around a mouthful of onigiri and asks pithily if Atsumu has nothing better to do all night than judge the way he eats.

Atsumu relents and picks up his own onigiri. It's delicious, the first delicately salted mouthful of rice and seaweed, and the savory salmon that follows. 

"Onigiri always tastes better when you make it with your own hands," he tells Sakusa, "touching the rice." Sakusa ignores him. 

The conversation stumbles onward to what the best onigiri filling is.

Atsumu's surprised to learn that Sakusa's favourite onigiri flavour is kombu, not umeboshi. Pickled kelp, not pickled plums. 

Sakusa's talking about the salty taste of the sea, the wildness of salted ribbons of seaweed compared to the tart tameness of a pickled plum. _They're both pickles_ , Atsumu thinks. He doesn't see the difference. 

"How d'you eat umeboshi, then?" Atsumu asks, because he's never been able to eat them whole, the intense taste much too strong. When he's in the mood for it, he slices them up into tiny strips and eats them with rice or porridge. 

"I don't like to eat it with rice," Sakusa says, "or porridge." He pauses to take another bite, and chews and swallows before he answers Atsumu's question. 

"I just eat them—whole. Like that. When I feel like I'm going to fall sick. It works." 

_Probably cos you weren't even gonna fall sick in the first place, you hypochondriac_ , Atsumu thinks. He doesn't say this out loud. Somehow it makes sense; Atsumu can imagine it. Sakusa, lying in the darkness of his own anxiety, sucking on a huge salty sour plum. He can wholeheartedly imagine Sakusa eating entire plums in defiance of the germs and illnesses he sees coming for him, face scrunching up in determination against the intense salt and sourness, sucking on a plum until it goes soft and the acid stops biting at his cheeks. 

"Why do you hate yourself so much," Atsumu asks him, in lieu of investigating the soft tenderness that rises in his heart at the thought of Sakusa sucking on a pickled plum. 

Sakusa shrugs. 

"Habit," he says, as if this explains anything.

* * *

"How many people have you been in love with?" Atsumu asks, as dinner proceeds. He's been thinking about it all week. Sakusa chews thoughtfully and swallows before answering. 

Atsumu waits. 

"Why?" Sakusa finally asks, looking thoroughly amused. "Scared I'll fall in love with you next?" 

Atsumu doesn't deny this. He blinks and shrugs. The honesty warms Sakusa's heart. 

"How many people have _you_ fallen in love with?" Sakusa asks in return, curious. 

"No-one," Atsumu answers, proud. Sakusa laughs, unwittingly charmed by Atsumu's uninhabited childishness. 

"Is that so," Sakusa murmurs, more and more curious by the second. 

Atsumu grunts at him. Then he looks right at Saksua, eyes aflame. 

"Why?" Atsumu asks, mouth curling in clear challenge. "Think you can make me fall for you? Think you can resist falling for me?" 

_Fuck_ , Sakusa thinks. 

_Fuck_. He won't answer. 

"You really want to be the first fling to let me down?" Atsumu asks, chewing aggressively. 

Sakusa sighs at the audacity—the sheer _audacity_ —

"You haven't answered my question," Atsumu continues. 

"I don't have to," Sakusa tells him, licking primly at his spoon. His heart recovers quickly, and he smirks at Atsumu. _Wouldn't you like to know_. Names and faces flash through his head. All at least twice as well-mannered as the heathen eating and talking at the same time in front of him right now; all at least twice as well suited to love as _Miya Atsumu_. None quite as blindingly attractive, though. Sakusa likes having crushes on untouchable people. Less heartache, more certainty. Being attracted to someone as painfully available as Atsumu isn't something he really wants to deal with at all. Even so. Sakusa thinks he'll survive. Atsumu need never know. 

"You don't need to know who and how many," Sakusa continues, over the sound of Atsumu's chewing. "I know well enough to know never to fall in love with you." 

Atsumu doesn't seem entirely placated. 

" _Never_ to fall in love with you," Sakusa repeats, letting his voice go hard, letting himself lean forward to emphasise the point. 

"I'm not doing this to make you fall in love with me," Atsumu answers, laughing. And—well. That's certainly true. 

The moment breaks. Sakusa blinks at him, all thoughts of romance forgotten. 

* * *

Sakusa's a somewhat depressing dinner companion, Atsumu reflects. But the salted salmon onigiri is excellent, and so are the roasted vegetables and clam soup. It's a good dinner, one of the best ones Atsumu's had at home since he moved to Osaka to join the Black Jackals. _Something from the sea, and something from the hills._ Someone to eat it with. 

Atsumu washes up after dinner, carefully soaping and scrubbing each plate thoroughly before rinsing it clean. He runs his fingers over the surface of each plate, checking for bits of dried rice. Sakusa wipes down every surface in the kitchen with a damp rag, then goes over again with disinfectant. 

It's been such a warm, companionable day that Atsumu's mildly shocked by the cool spring air as Sakusa bids him goodbye and lets him out. 

"Don't miss me too much, Omi-kun," Atsumu grins, waving goodbye. 

"You wish," Sakusa mutters back, but Atsumu sees the tiny puff of laughter that follows. 

He's happy and full all the way back to his apartment, and he falls into a deep and contented sleep. 


End file.
